This invention relates to appliance control consoles and more specifically to household appliance control consoles such as those on clothes washing machines, clothes driers, and dishwashers having control knobs on the control console that can be set by an operator.
Household appliances are often located in low-light areas such as utility rooms or under counters. Low-light conditions can make it difficult to read appliance functions and control settings or positions. If an appliance control is set improperly due to low-light conditions, the appliance may not perform as expected by the operator or the appliance may run longer than necessary and waste energy.
Previous appliance control consoles have used lights mounted on the exterior of the control console to floodlight controls on the control console, so an operator could read controls in low-light areas. Although a floodlighted control console will illuminate controls in a low-light area, floodlighting can cause glare making some controls more difficult to read at certain angles or annoy operators with light projecting from the appliance control console.
Previous appliance controls have placed neon lights beneath a control dial to illuminate the control dial. While the control dial is illuminated by this backlighting technique, the rest of the control console remains unlit. An unlit control console may still possess the undesirable characteristic of making data labeled directly on the control console difficult to read. An example of a backlit appliance control dial can be found in a KitchenAid.RTM. thermal convection oven model no. KEBS177X.
Some premium household appliances have solid state controls that are typically annunciated with light emitting diodes (LEDs) or backlit liquid crystal displays. Although more expensive, such appliances controls can be seen easily in low-light areas and are more ergonomically friendly with different functions often represented by different color LEDs. The improved ergonomics of solid state controls is often a major reason for a customer to pay the premium price for solid state controls rather than purchase an appliance with electromechanical controls although many consumers find analog controls easier to operate.
What is needed is a technique of backlighting the appliance control console and control dials to permit easy reading in low-light areas, and simulate the improved the ergonomics of a solid state controlled appliance with color illumination to represent different appliance functions while maintaining the ease of operation associated with analog controls.